GOSHEN — From the start, police suspected the worst in 4-year-old Marc Bookal's disappearance from his City of Newburgh home, court records show.

As detectives checked around the apartment at 11 Benkard Ave. to make sure Marc wasn't hiding on Dec. 14, 2009, they found a spray of blood droplets on the wall and sink in the basement bathroom and a white adult sweatshirt soaking in bleach in the bathtub. They found blood droplets on the floor and vanity in the upper-floor bathroom, along with bloody tissues in a garbage can.

Cory Byrd, who was the boyfriend of Marc's mother, Christina Bookal, was the last person to see Marc alive, and faces murder charges in his death.

The documents — affidavits filed in support of search warrant applications — tell a chilling story of the first hours and days after Marc disappeared.